01 February 2012

Plums and Apricots

When we do our groceries, we usually head off to the veggies, meat and packaged products after grabbing fruits that we are familiar with: bananas, apples and oranges mostly. I have become rather fond of feijoas
because they remind me of our yummy guava so we buy these too whenever in season.
This week I decided to have a look at our other fruit options because I suddenly found myself longing for some of our ours, hoping that these can tide me over until the day we visit the Philippines again. I guess it cannot be helped that I will compare the taste of the fruits here with those I grew up with, but at the same time it makes it a bit easier to describe what these are like.

Plums and apricots are about as common as they can get so I decided to try these out.

The Plum is best eaten as is. It is juicy and slightly sweet. Texture-wise, I was able to easily correlate it with eating sinigwelas, the fruit of many happy childhood summers. I did a little search on sinigwelas and I learned that it was introduced by the Spaniards and is originally from Mexico. In English, it is Jocote, and also - surprise - Spanish Plum.

Going back to the plum... it is rich in vitamin C and has antioxidants so it's good for you. Unfortunately, it is also one of the few kinds of food which contains a measurable amount of oxalate, so people with kidney or gall bladder problems should steer clear of plums. A complete description can be found in whfoods.com.

The Apricot, on the other hand, is something else. This golden-orange fruit has a velvety skin, as is the flesh. I actually could not correlate the texture when I had one in the office. Later at home, I wondered out loud that I could not compare the apricot with what we have back in the Philippines, then my wife said it was like eating chesa. To some extent, texture-wise, she is right. It is such a strange sensation eating the apricot. But I tell you, nothing beats the chesa. I cannot get through even a fourth of this before I give up. It tastes good enough, but it's just so overpowering!

I was able to finish an apricot though, so that's good. It has loads of Vitamin A (good for the heart and eyes!), and is a great source of fiber. I should definitely try dried apricots next time (for texture preference).